Local Exhibits

Pachucos y Sirenas

Museo de las Americas

February 8 – May 26, 2018

Opening reception: Thursday, February 8 from 6-9 pm

Artist talk: Friday, February 9 from 6-8 pm

Pachucos y Sirenas explores the roles that fashion plays in developing a cultural Identity in major urban settings. The exhibition will feature old school and new school artists that share an affinity with the Pachuco legacy. Artists such as Justin Favela, Antonia Fernandez, Carlos Fresquez, Josiah Lopez, Jerry Vigil, and Daniel Salazar will highlight the impact that the 1940’s Pachuco legacy had on the American experience. Exhibition programming will include contributing fashion designers Cha Cha Romero and Alexandra Peralta, Suavecito Car Club, and artist Alfredo Cardenas.

Museo de las Americas continues to be the premier Latino Museum of the rocky mountain region by delivering an insight into the Pachuco era of the late 1930s and 40s, where the young Mexican-American youth cultivated a highly stylized language, culture, and fashion as a way of expressing cultural pride during a time where the very essence of being Latino was un-American. The exhibition will feature the Caló language—now influentially woven in the way we speak Spanish today, the zoot suit that not only is a symbol of masculinity and rebellion but cultural pride, along with the boundaries that the Latina crossed to reclaim her sexuality and individuality. The exhibition looks at the role that fashion plays in cultivating street identities in where it creates a comradery among individuals who have the freedom to invent a lifestyle all their own.

“The Pachuco of the 1940s introduced a tribalism and style that presupposed eminent cultural upheavals that would change the American cultural landscape. This prelude of the Chicano Movimiento in the 1960s was cleverly disguised through fashion, dance, music, and language. Delivering a fresh hybrid identity with a tribal flair that spread like wildfire among the youth.” – Chief Curator, Maruca Salazar.